A SENIOR council officer has become the first victim of the authority’s programme of cuts.

Cliff Brown, the director of community services at Darlington Borough Council, has had a request for voluntary redundancy accepted.

He is the first high-profile figure to be affected as Darlington Borough Council tries to make savings of £22m from its £107m budget.

Part of the cutbacks involve reducing the top three tiers of management at a potential saving of £1m.

Mr Brown’s departure is in anticipation of these cuts.

Mr Brown, 59, has been a senior public servant in Darlington for more than 30 years and a director on the corporate management team of Darlington Borough Council for 22 years.

He began his career as area housing officer at North Bedfordshire Borough Council in the late 1970s, moving to be assistant chief housing officer at Darlington Borough Council in 1979.

In 1988, Mr Brown was appointed to the new role of director of contract services and became the director of Community Services in 1999.

In his first ten years as a Director, Mr Brown led frontline services including building construction and maintenance, refuse collection, street cleaning, and leisure management through the compulsory competition process and transformed the services into profitable business units.

He also played a key role in the transfer of services from Durham County Council when Darlington Borough became a unitary authority in 1997.

In more recent work, Mr Brown has led the work to improve standards of adult social care securing the current independent assessment of services as “excellent”.

He also spearheaded the creation of the ‘StreetScene’ service - which continues to undertake all environmental, street cleaning, park and waste management within the Borough.

Mr Brown oversaw the refurbishment of the Dolphin Centre leisure centre and Stressholme Golf Course restaurant as well taking over to ensure the completion of the Eastern Transport Corridor when project management difficulties had arisen.

Mr Brown also led a number of teams in achieving success and national recognition for Darlington through a range of awards including a Heritage Lottery Award for the Council’s refurbishment of South Park to its original Victorian condition, a first Local Government Chronicle award, a first Beacon Service award for the Council, Britain in Bloom, Northumbria in Bloom, a Silver medal at Chelsea flower Show and national Sports and Leisure Management Award.

Coun John Williams, leader of the council, said: “Cliff has been a huge asset to Darlington; he has achieved a great deal with tremendous energy and integrity and is popular and well-respected.

“We are very sad to see him go and he will be an enormous loss to the organisation but we wish him all the best.”

Mr Brown, said: “Darlington is my home town but I never expected to spend the majority of my career here – I have really enjoyed the challenge of improving services, contributing to the pride of the town and maintaining local employment while also being given the opportunity to be a part of the council’s wider regional working.”

Mr Brown will leave the council in late December; it is anticipated new management structures will be announced in late November.